COLOSSEUM—SUBSTRUCTURES
A. REMAINS OF A CANAL SUPPORTED ON TIMBERS
B. —— OF ANOTHER CANAL SUPPORTED ON ARCHES
Description of Plate X.
SUBSTRUCTURES.
Remains of two Canals, one supported on Timbers, the other on Brick Arches.
These two canals, parallel to each other, to be supplied with water by the aqueducts, and used for the naumachia or naval fights, are among the most curious discoveries brought to light in the recent explorations. They shew how completely the whole of the great public exhibitions of the ancient Romans were theatrical displays, with all the usual tricks of a theatre, just the same as in a Christmas pantomime.
This shews also that stagna do not necessarily mean ponds; any reservoir of water is a stagnum, whether supplied by a natural spring or by an aqueduct. Neither of these now remaining are of the time of Nero, they belong to later repairs or alterations; but the great thickness and strength of the wall of so little height could only have been made to support the weight of water. This is especially evident in the upper view, where the wall is nearly as thick as it is high. In this passage the canal, lined with lead, was supported on massive wooden beams; in the lower view the canal in that passage, which is wider than the other, was supported on the brick arches of the second or third century, shewn in this view.
It is even probable that the stagna of Nero were in the same place as these, as a good deal of brickwork of his time is on a higher level than these walls, and the two sheets of water, one on either side of the great central passage, would have been magnificent sheets of water, about three hundred feet long and fifty or sixty or more wide in the central part, though narrow at both ends. It is still possible, though not probable, that the stagna of Nero were on a lower level, cut through a bed of tufa, which is not generally very thick, to the clay of the Tiber valley beneath. This would account for the central passages on the site of the stagna having suffered so much from the earthquakes, while the great corridors of the Flavian Emperors, standing on the bed of tufa, have not suffered at all.
THE COLOSSEUM.
PLATE XI.
TWO CAPITALS.
A. From the Upper Storey.
B. From the lower one, or the Podium.